


All Love

by SunflowerWoman



Category: Harry Potter - J. K. Rowling
Genre: Alcohol, Break Up, Drinking, Emotional Hurt/Comfort, F/M, Falling In Love, Heartbreak, Heartbreaking, Hurt, Implied/Referenced Drug Use, Love, Love Confessions, One Shot, Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Post-War, Romance, Sad Ending, Song: All Love (Fletcher)
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-09-29
Updated: 2020-09-29
Packaged: 2021-03-08 01:01:13
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,081
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/26707141
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SunflowerWoman/pseuds/SunflowerWoman
Summary: Hermione drinks alone at muggle bars to lose what little bit of herself that she has left. Unfortunately, she taught Draco how blissful anonymity in the muggle world can be and now they frequent the same pub. She's haunted by the things she can't seem to escape from - including Draco Malfoy, of all things.
Relationships: Hermione Granger/Draco Malfoy
Comments: 8
Kudos: 40





	All Love

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by the song "All Love" by Fletcher, whose lyrics are contained within. Written in one sitting so all errors are my own. Enjoy some sad feels and cry with me!

It was common for Hermione Granger to frequent the muggle world. She liked how it felt, so far away from the worries and strife of the magical community. Nothing was quite the same once the war ended, and while some people fought to right the many wrongs the war had caused… or rather, had revealed, Hermione found herself exhausted. She had always envisioned being the change she wanted to see in the world, but in the end, the war took too much from her. She passed those dreams onto others more starry-eyed than herself. Gave them plans, a vision, a mission.

Then she ducked out. Not many people heard from her anymore. 

Muggle cities reminded her of home, of her childhood. A place without chaos. A safe haven. More often than not lately, she thought of her parents and wondered if they ever felt that empty space, the one that snuck up on you without warning. The breath would leave your lungs and you’d tremble for a moment, your eyes turned inwards, a memory tickling just behind your eyelids. Almost like a sneeze that wouldn’t come.

But as soon as the moment arrived, it passed just as quickly. Your back straightened, and you could breathe again. The trembling stopped. 

Hermione clutched her chest without realizing. The muggle bartender took his cue, something he noticed in many patrons with troubles they couldn’t speak, and brought her the usual order. A bottle of generic rum to go with the drink she had been nursing for the past half hour. His gaze lingered a bit longer than necessary before he returned to his station behind the bar to serve other customers.

Hermione didn’t take any notice of the exchange. She had spoken with multiple war veterans who had experienced the same troublesome phenomena with no solution. For her, the moments came more frequently now, and each time they lasted longer. Whoever said that time heals all wounds was lying to himself and everyone else. This shit didn’t get any easier.

And no matter what Hermione did, whether it meant taking a sleeping drought on her nights off or dancing at a muggle club to drown out her thoughts in the pulsating rhythm, nothing helped soothe the ache. The emptiness persisted. 

The feeling spread from her chest to her hands and she took a large gulp of her beverage, a simple rum and coke. The fizz crackled in her nose and she sniffed and blinked water from her eyes. 

The taste stirred yet another memory, but this one ached so deeply that she quickly took a shot of the rum at her table. The burn felt good to her now, a different kind of pain. One she could manage. Something she could control. 

But the memory lingered, and before she could stop herself, she thought of him.

_We started out as friends in the Lower East  
Did a couple drugs at the house parties  
Late nights in taxi cabs  
Wish I could have 'em back_

They used to bump into each other at parties, a surprise for them both at the time. Hermione didn’t expect a Malfoy to slum with the commoners at the Ministry’s lower levels, and Draco didn’t expect Granger to stoop to partying with strangers. Clearly they both overestimated each other. 

Eventually they found themselves labeled regulars at the same parties. You know the ones. The host is a well-known stranger that allows anyone with a Ministry badge in, the wards on the estate strong enough to repel any fake IDs but not strong enough to detect which employees arrived. The parties were strange to her at first but Hermione dove right in upon her first offhand invitation from a coworker. After she and Ron had fizzled out after the hazy tint of war faded and Harry became preoccupied with his newest additions to he and Ginny’s household, Hermione found herself with more time alone.

Time she didn’t want. 

Then Draco Malfoy arrived. Many people want a knight on a white stallion to burst through the doors and rescue them from whatever mess they’ve gotten themselves into, but in truth, both he and Hermione were lost at sea, treading water, the horse long dead, their eyes filled with a certain desperation that sparked each other’s interest and magnetized themselves towards each other. 

They were both missing something that time wouldn’t heal. 

For a time, they were enough for each other. But like most things Hermione touched lately, this too came to an end. 

_'Cause there's a lot of things that I never said  
Now you're with somebody else in a different bed  
You're happy, I could see  
And that's so hard for me_

She didn’t see him often. Their sections of the Ministry rarely worked together, if at all, and once they separated, she stopped seeking him out. They hadn’t been to a party since she had introduced him to the magic of muggle venues, so it seemed silly to go back now. They both enjoyed the anonymity from their daily lives that the muggle world provided, and he delighted in things she had never expected. The smell of a bakery at five in the morning under the drizzle of an approaching summer’s rain, the way mucky sand squished between his toes at the lake Hermione frequented as a child, the warmth of the neighbor’s lap dog resting in his lap when Hermione offered to house sit. 

But now he was with someone else. Hermione didn’t know her name, and to be honest, she didn’t want to know. The only thing she could feel when she thought of him was… emptiness. 

Or was this what people called regret?

_When you walk in the bar with someone holding hands  
Introduce me to her, say I'm just an old friend  
And you ask how I've been  
I say I'm doing fine but I'm lying_

It was unfortunate that they were more compatible than she realized. The bells jingled as the door to the pub swung open, and before Hermione could glance up, she already knew whose brown leather boots she’d find crossing the threshold. Somehow her body could feel him, and her blood thrummed softly beneath her skin.  
Somehow his presence always did that: made her feel like she was disintegrating and coagulating at the same time. 

“Hermione-“ He sounded breathless, like seeing her was enough to cause him to come undone, too. 

_Of course_ he would try to take their usual table, but Hermione had gotten there first. It was the only table nestled in one of the four corners of the room, surrounded by windows so that they could watch life pass them by. It was soothing, to watch others live happily. 

He hadn’t been paying attention as he steered his company to the very spot Hermione sat, and this was their mutual punishment. 

Hermione breathed as evenly as possible, which was a bit difficult considering her inebriated state. She peered not at Draco, but at the woman clutching his arm like he held the key to all the happiness left in the world. 

Part of Hermione believed he did. 

“Who’s this, Draco?” the woman cooed, oblivious to the way Draco’s throat bobbed and his eyes melted just enough to where Hermione could notice. 

But he composed himself quickly and Hermione watched his lips turn into a smile. Warm, but cautious. Untrusting. Like Hermione was a mirage his mind had conjured up to torture him once more. 

“An old friend,” he breathed finally, resting his hand over the woman’s. “How have you been?”

_I’m doing fine, can’t you tell?_

He excused himself and his date to occupy a table across the room. Hermione couldn’t help but watch as the bartender brought him a rum and coke, too. The same as hers.

_I take another shot, need the Novocaine  
Wish it would numb my heart, way it numbs my brain  
But it's all love  
I don't feel it, but it's all love_

Was his woman even a witch? Or was he with a muggle woman?

Hermione’s stomach churned at the thought of him using what he learned about muggle life from her to woo other women. _Muggles._ Was he trying to hide that deeply? Bury himself so far down in the muggle world that he suffocated the person he was and reincarnated as someone new?

Was it even possible to do so?

_The way you kiss on her neck  
With that look in your eyes  
Do it right in front of me  
Kinda makes me wanna die_

Hermione took another shot and exhaled smoke, the magic inside her broiling. He must have known that she could see them. Or did he forget about her already?

His gray eyes flickered back to her corner of the room and she almost believed he was baiting her.

But the echoing jingle of the bells reminded Hermione that she was closer to the door than him, and that he merely glanced at the newest patron entering the room.  
Not at her.

_Should we forget about the past, is that how you cope?  
Should we drink a little more of that rum and coke?  
I don't know how to be  
When she looks a bit like me_

For someone who didn’t drink or smoke or do _anything_ remotely inappropriate during school, Hermione had built her tolerance up for drugs and alcohol quickly. It helped that magic could reverse the negative effects, and Hermione was one of the brightest witches of her age, so she was able to help many a person (herself included) pick themselves up at the end of the night. 

It was never something she participated in seriously, but more of a social thing. Draco seemed much the opportunist despite the fact he had all the money in the world to buy his own poisons. “I won’t waste money on something I can get for free,” he used to say as he handed Hermione whatever high they were about to take together.  
In truth, she only continued because they did them together, and for the first time in years, Hermione didn’t feel alone anymore. 

But something changed after a while. They stopped actually participating in the parties and instead watched the sun rise from the rooftop. The array of colors bled into each other seamlessly, much like how they shifted from acquaintances to friends. 

Before they knew it, Draco slept over at Hermione’s flat in London at least once per week. It wasn’t something they had discussed, almost like it was a taboo to even imagine. They never talked about what they were to each other.

Not when the drugs stopped.  
Not when they began dining together during the evenings.  
Not when he first took to her bed for warmth… and not any time after. 

There was a certain beauty to their relationship that neither wanted to shatter. A solace in each other’s company. A stillness. It was like the war had blasted gaping holes in their bodies that they never patched up, could never get to stop bleeding, and suddenly it slowed to a trickle, then morphed into a scar. Still painful, but bearable. Able to be overlooked. 

But when Draco vocalized his desire for more than her body and more than her mind, Hermione had nothing to give him.

Empty. 

How couldn’t he understand that? Wasn’t he empty, too? Didn’t the war decimate any shred of an identity that he had?  
_With you, I’ve found myself again, Hermione._  
She couldn’t believe it.  
_No, that’s not quite right. I’ve found who I’m meant to be._  
That was even less likely.  
_I’m truly happy for the first time in my life. I feel whole now, and it’s because of you, Hermione._  
Don’t say it. _Please.  
I love you, Hermione Granger. After all this time, don’t you feel anything for me at all?_  
I can’t love you. I can’t love anything. Don’t you get it?  
Everything I love dies.

When Draco left the bar two hours later with a drunken spring to his step that Hermione used to skip to, a piece of Hermione left with him. Something she didn’t know that she had left to give. And now that she recognized its existence, it left involuntarily. 

She felt a warmth leave her, like a dying light. The last bit of life she had left to give. 

Empty. That’s all she was. That’s all she would ever be.

_I say I'm doing fine but I'm fucking lying_


End file.
